How to format your references using the Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

[1]

Schnitzer MJ. Journal club. A neuroscientist learns about algorithms for motor learning. Nature 2010;463:273.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Mimitou EP, Symington LS. Sae2, Exo1 and Sgs1 collaborate in DNA double-strand break processing. Nature 2008;455:770–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Roberts RB, Ser JR, Kocher TD. Sexual conflict resolved by invasion of a novel sex determiner in Lake Malawi cichlid fishes. Science 2009;326:998–1001.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Stanhope MJ, Lupas A, Italia MJ, Koretke KK, Volker C, Brown JR. Phylogenetic analyses do not support horizontal gene transfers from bacteria to vertebrates. Nature 2001;411:940–4.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

[1]

Gwynne P. World Religions in Practice. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2017.

An edited book

[1]

Purchase D, editor. Fungal Applications in Sustainable Environmental Biotechnology. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Kitoogo FE, Bitwayiki C. e-Justice Implementation at a National Scale: The Ugandan Case. In: Villafiorita A, Saint-Paul R, Zorer A, editors. E-Infrastructures and E-Services on Developing Countries: First International ICST Conference, AFRICOM 2009, Maputo, Mozambique, December 3-4, 2009. Proceedings, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010, p. 40–9.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Scientists Search For The Origins Of Alzheimer’s In Space. IFLScience 2015.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Computer Systems: Continued Oversight Crucial for Air Force’s Requirements Data Bank. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1986.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Laubacher TL. Simplifying “Inherently Governmental” Functions: Choosing between a Principled Approach or More of the Same. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University, 2016.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

[1]

Otis J. A Blind Man Leans on His Faith as a Source of Encouragement. New York Times 2016:A24.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology
Abbreviation	Synth. Syst. Biotechnol.
ISSN (print)	2405-805X
Scope

Research and Writing Guides